The Church of Irony and the Afterlife

The church of irony has no firm notions regarding the afterlife, save that only atheists will go to Heaven.* All others, it is proposed, will be subjected to a Hell of their own choosing. This is sometimes referred to as the miracle of irrational preferences.

Other factions within the church argue that this world is the afterlife. The meta-spectralites, for example, hold that most (but not all) people are ghosts, and on occasion will gather for an inverse seance to determine which among them are the living. Another sect maintains that this world is intended to be something called "The Hell of Small Objects," and that therefore the prosperity of the NBA represents a grave miscarriage of cosmic intent.** There is a firm consensus in the church that most things are grave miscarriages of cosmic intent. Another offshoot sect, the pan-sepulchralists, merely believe that most things are graves.*** The pan-sepulchralists, though, have nearly died out, owing to their rather strict commandments regarding the desecration of burial grounds.

* In the words of the prophet Herschel, "Heaven is full of awkward conversations."

** Their proposal is that the vast majority of us exist only to facilitate the continued discomfort and awkwardness of a few very tall individuals by, e.g. contructing low doorframes and designing airline seats with minimal leg room. The popularity of physical spectacle, however, has allowed many of these individuals to circumvent or at least compensate for such annoyances.

*** In the sense that for most locations on the planet, it is overwhelmingly likely that something has died there, this is literally true. The pan-sepulchralists, however, hold that memorial need not be bound by the limits of memory.